TEHRAN – The Karnameh Art and Cultural Institute in Tehran in collaboration with two institutes in France and England has established the Abbas Kiarostami Awards to honor the world’s promising filmmakers.

Karnameh Director Negar Eskandarfar announced the news on Wednesday during a meeting at Thirty Images – Kiarostami, an exhibition displaying works by 30 photographers and painters on the world renowned Iranian filmmaker Kiarostami at Tehran’s Mellat Cineplex.   

École Supérieure d'AudioVisuel (Higher School of Audio Visual) in Toulouse, France, and the London Film School in England will also collaborate in the Abbas Kiarostami Awards, which will be presented to three young filmmakers at Karnameh during a three-day program from June 10 to 12, 2017.

Eskandarfar said that over 500 young filmmakers attended workshops that Kiarostami held at Karnameh over the past eleven years. The winners will be selected from among the students who attended the workshops.     

Eskandarfar also said that her institute is ready to transfer the responsibility for organizing the awards to the Kiarostami foundation, which is scheduled to be established by his family. 

MMS/YAW